All posts by Adam Becker

SeeDeeS Images is a Pittsburgh based photography and imaging studio run by the talented Cryss Stephens. Along with being a top tier player Cryss also runs a great studio making some really amazing pinball related artwork.

Cryss was generous enough to donate this print to the league. It’s actually printed on metal and mounted on wood for hanging.

This will be given away on the Aug 17th League night at Andrew’s place via our Mystery score Giveaway!

Thanks very much for the donation Cryss, I’m sure someone in the league will be very happy come Aug 17th!

Please make sure to check out Cryss’s site and drop him a line to say thank you for the sponsorship, also if any of his works intrigues you tell him you’re from TOPL and I’m sure he will work out a deal for you

First and foremost I wanted to thank everyone who make it out week after week, the membership and our hosts are what make the league as great as it is and I’m quite proud of the community that we have built!

In our ongoing effort to remain as transparent as possible with all the funds that come into the league I’ve finished the Financial Ledger for the Summer of 2015 Season, it can be found here:

As you can see before playoffs we have $1440 to use for prizes. We are going to hold back $400 of the money taken in the season to use for giveaways and to put towards the pinball machine giveaway.

Right now the Bally Rock Makers in my basement is going to be the machine we will be using for the giveaway, but we are keeping our eyes out for something a little nicer J If we can find something within the budget. We will keep everyone updated on that progress.

I also wanted to let everyone know that we are going to be doing the mystery score giveaway more frequently, starting the first week of the new season on July 27th. We are going to be doing at least 3 – 4 of the Grey TOPL shirts donated by Eddie this Season, I’m also on the hunt for other prizes and will be announcing those as they become available!

On behalf of the TOPL Leadership team I wanted to thanks for another great season and I look forward to seeing everyone at playoffs!

As the old saying goes, while the cat’s away the mice will play 🙂 Since Chris is off this week and I was back to doing scores I thought it might be a good time to introduce everyone to where we are headed with the league in terms of upgrading our scoring system.

For as long as I have been in the league, the week to week scores and groupings have all be handled on a excel spreadsheet that has is really a work of art in and of itself, and kept working on the sheer perseverance of one member, that being Charles Blaquiere. I can’t even imagine how much more difficult it would have been to run this league without that Excel spread sheet all these years, so thanks very much Charles for your hard work up to this point.

Staring with Frolic last year TOPL started an initiative with Joe Schrober of the FSPA, to move onto a new system for scoring in the league. With the help of Joe doing all the back-end work and PAPA donating the hosting services we are very close to finally moving off onto this new piece of software.

This will open up a realm of new opportunities for us from a tracking and data perspective as all information is kept available at all times on this site, forever. One thing is to get all the historical data into the system but that is a long term project.

Keep in mind we are still working out the kinks, we only have 2 full seasons worth of data, plus the current in session season and the most improved award hasn’t been added in yet.

But everything else is there, so without further ado I’d like to introduce everyone to the Toronto Pinball League Manager, brought to us by the FPSA and PAPA!

The spreadsheet will get updated this week so we can publish the most improved, but for now I wanted to give everyone a glimpse into some of the stuff the leadership team has been working on in the back-end.

I’d also like to take a moment and recognize a new section for the TOPL.ca website, this section being our sponsors page.

http://topl.ca/sponsors/

The generosity of these sponsors is unparalleled and as such needs to be recognized. It’s our goal to shine a spotlight on these donations and be as accountable as possible to our membership as well as the generous people who have donated to the league.

With that in mind we have created the sponsors page on the topl.ca website, on this page we will track who has donated what, what our plans are to do with that donation and who has directly benefited from that donation.

We will notify the membership every time we receive a new donation and we ask our membership to take minute out of your day the next time you see these individuals and thank them for their generosity and the help they have provided to grow the league and make it better.

If you know of anyone who would like to help out the league or would like to help out the league yourself please contact any of the members of the TOPL Leadership team, we will work with our sponsors to ensure the donation is used in a way they approve of, to best benefit the league.

First and foremost before I introduce everyone to the new initiative we are going to try I want to thank Eddie for his generous donation of $300 to the League to help fund the purchase of these shirts. Without Eddie’s donation it would not have been possible for us to be able to offer this to the membership, so please if you get a chance thank Eddie if you see him in person, attend a DRAPL league night (details here http://www.drapinballleague.com/) or send him an email expressing your gratitude.

So without further ado I would like to introduce the Toronto Pinball League Mystery Score T-Shirt Giveaway.

The concept is simple, just like a mystery score on a pinball machine, a 5 or 6 digit mystery score will be written down on a sheet of paper and sealed in an envelope before the start of league night. The only person who will know the score will by myself (which will obviously mean I am ineligible to participate).

The player who’s last 6 or 5 digits on any machine that was played during league play that is closest to the score written down on the paper will get 1 of the TOPL Grey Colored T-Shirts for Free!

We are not going to set a schedule for when these giveaways will be happening but we will make sure that we announce when we are doing them at least 2 weeks in advance to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to attend.

So with that in mind I would like to announce that the first Mystery T-shirt giveaway will take place on Monday May 25th at Luch’s place!

I wanted to take a moment and recognize a family fun center that has been kept running by the sheer determination of one of the founding members of the Toronto Pinball League.

InPlay now with 2 locations, one in Newmarket and one in Barrie was started by Sarah Brown, I want to say some 10 years ago now. It is a great location that the league used to visit until we out grew the location. My last visit, Sarah was still keeping the pinball spirit alive with Medieval Madness, Cirqus Voltaire and Monster Bash at her Newmarket location.

We wish Sarah continued success in her venture and if you are ever in need of a location for a party you should give InPlay a look.

Thanks as always to Jim for opening up his amazing collection of machines for the league to enjoy!

A small turn out for the final night, but not unexpected as most things are already firmed up before the final league night.

High scores this week went to:

Bringing the final totals for the season to:

In the most improved race Congratulations to Tim Sanderson for being the Most Improved player for this TOPL Season! Tim will get possession of the most improved trophy for the entirety of next season as well as a “Replay” for the next season!